Well, since there seem to be a lot of Pess's old friends here, and I kind of like the attitude of everyone here, so I'll jump in and give you a "Pess rundown." Embarrass the hell out of him if he knew about it, but I just can't resist...how many people do you know that are multi-multi-millionaires that are "regular people?" Pess is regular people, even after losing 30 years of memory to brain surgery. As the saying goes, "The surgery was a success, but the patient lost his mind." But he is still super intelligent, and studies, researches everything six ways to Sunday to get at "what's really what." I've known him for well over 35 years, so I remember the "before and after." And with his penchant for study, I'm hoping he will regain his old attitude about SHTF potential and get back to "normal." Met him in a bar (where else?), he was shooting pool with a couple guys...me, I was sitting at the bar sucking a Bud. Guy a few stools down slapped the crap out of his girlfriend (I guess she was his girlfriend), knocked her clean off the bar stool. Pess walked over, looked at her, looked at him, did a spinning back fist and put the guy clear into next week...no talk, no warning, no nothing. Guy picked himself up off the floor, and Pess just said, "Reckon you know what that feels like now. Might be time for you to leave." I will NEVER forget that!! You could have heard a pin drop in that place. Bartender came over, gave Pess a beer, and said, "Congratulations, you just earned yourself free beer for the night. I've wanted to do that for a long time." Was Pess the rowdy type? Nope. He was an up and coming real estate jockey, suit and tie, and practically lived in his office. We got acquainted, discovered we were both helo pilots, and have been friends ever since. The man was an absolute genius when it came to real estate....you know all those morons who write books about how much money they made in real estate, but really make their money selling books? Well, Pess sold the real estate, didn't write no book, and made a whole lot more than those self-proclaimed experts ever thought about making. And he concentrated a lot on helping a lot of the military guys get their first homes by buying up foreclosure and tax lien homes and selling them to the military guys at about 60% market value. He also had an eye for the "big ones." I remember one piece of property, 80 acres, raw land, he bought for $35,000 and turned it into a $6+ million long-term operation for a local church...turned it into a cemetery, selling plots for a mere $100 each. Church paid him $150,000 for the property. (Did you know using 5' x 10' plots, you can bury over 870 people per acre?) No, he didn't make a whole lot of money on the deal, but how many people would have seen a $6+ million potential out of that raw land, just for plot sales, and never mind all the other ways a cemetery makes money. The man has a 9 digit bank account, owns a chunk of a bank, among a lot of other things....and lives in an old mobile home on 3 acres with his two dogs, drives an old beater Tahoe, runs around in camos and carries a .380 like it was glued to his back. Built a better than million dollar BOL, 50 miles from nowhere, USA, and now he can't even remember building it....told me to take care of it, and my son and I will do just that. They just don't make people like Pess any more. Would I stand up for him? You better believe it...ANYONE who messes with him will have to mess with me, too, and my son, and his cousin, and the bounty hunter that's a tenant in his other mobile home, and his brother, because we're ALL coming after you. One fella has already learned that lesson, and I'll say no more about that! One of his dogs has an interesting history, too. "Bo" was about to be chunked into a dumpster at a local Walmart because the owner didn't want the sickly "runt of the litter"....Pess happened to see the guy and the bag squirming, and walked over to see what was what. To make a long story short, Pess acquired the pup after a brief "discussion" with the owner, bottle fed the little fella for a while, got him started on puppy food. That was over a year ago, and Bo now weighs a bit over 90 lbs, and at night you couldn't pry him out of Pess's bed with a crowbar. Pess had a DNA analysis done on him, and he's half Black Lab, quarter Great Dane, quarter Weimeraner, and he sure isn't a "runt." Pup just had worms real bad is all. Just knocks me for a loop seeing Pess lose 30 years, bang, after the surgery. Keep hoping the old Pess will come back, but it's been a while now, and no sign of memory recovery yet. Anyway, that's the kind of guy Pess is, and even though he doesn't remember ever being on a Forum, or anyone who was on the Forum, he says, "Thank you for the best wishes and prayers." VenomJockey over and out. (That's Dead Eye to you Lizard! Robopilot says "Hi," too.)
